Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Pastor Terry Jones: even his daughter thinks he’s mad

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islam is of the Devil bookThe Florida Christian preacher who has received world fame and condemnation by threatening to burn a pile of Korans demands strict obedience and unpaid labor from his tiny flock and sells used furniture out of his sanctuary, those who know him say.

He was ejected from a church he headed in Germany by his own followers. Even his daughter says she believes he has lost his mind in his fanatical crusade against Islam.

Terry Jones, a previously obscure 58-year-old fundamentalist pastor with slicked-back gray hair and a shaggy mustache, has gained a global pulpit with his proposed burning of Korans, the Islamic holy book.

His estranged daughter, Emma Jones, called the church a cult that forced obedience through “mental violence” and threats of God’s punishment. She said he ignored her emails urging him not to burn Korans.

“I think he has gone mad,” she told Germany’s Spiegel Online.

Reuters, 10 September 2010

Merkel honours anti-Muslim cartoonist

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Merkel and WestergaardGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, whose cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad caused anger in 2006. A depiction of Muhammad’s turban as a fused bomb sparked global outrage when it was published in Denmark.

Presenting him with a press freedom award, Mrs Merkel said Mr Westergaard was entitled to draw his caricatures. “Europe is a place where a cartoonist is allowed to draw something like this,” she said.

Germany’s Central Muslim Council (ZMD) criticised Ms Merkel for attending the award ceremony. A ZMD spokesman, Aiman Mazyek, told public broadcaster Deutschlandradio that the Chancellor was honouring someone “who in our eyes kicked our prophet, and therefore kicked all Muslims”. He said giving Mr Westergaard the prize in a “highly charged and heated time” was “highly problematic”.

BBC News, 8 September 2010

Perhaps Merkel might like to follow this up by promoting an exhibition of caricatures from Der Stürmer – all in the interests of celebrating Europe’s commitment to freedom of expression, you understand.

Qaradawi calls for peaceful protests against Burn a Koran Day

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Qaradawi2The International Union of Islamic Scholars has urged Muslims to react peacefully to the planned burning of copies of the Holy Quran by a small church in the US on the ninth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on Saturday.

The head of the Union, Dr Yusuf Al Qaradawi, in a statement yesterday called on fellow Muslims to protest in a peaceful manner and seek legal recourse against the group. “The man who has given the deplorable call and his group must be prosecuted,” said Dr Qaradawi. “The call is against the teachings of Christianity.”

The Doha Centre for Interfaith Dialogue has also condemned the call and said it reflected extremism and ignorance and ran contrary to the basic tenets of Christianity. “Christianity preaches peace and peaceful coexistence,” said Dr Ibrahim Al Nuaimi, the centre’s chairman.

The Peninsula, 9 September 2010

The problem with Qaradawi’s proposal that pastor Terry Jones should be prosecuted is that the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees the right to free speech, has been used to prevent the introduction of laws against incitement to hatred. Indeed, in the US it is possible to incite not only hatred but even violence against Muslims, as long as the call to violence remains generalised. So opponents of Jones’s vile behaviour do not in fact have any legal recourse.

It’s also worth considering what would happen in the UK if someone were to repeat Jones’s actions here. The reality is that a successful prosecution would be impossible under the existing religious hatred law, as it would be necessary to prove that the individual intended to incite hatred against Muslims, which they would certainly deny, and that the words and actions should be threatening, which they would not be.

On the other hand, if someone were to incite hatred against the Jewish community in the UK by erecting signs reading “Judaism is of the Devil”, burning copies of the Torah and claiming that Jews are the agents of Satan, then that individual could be successfully prosecuted – because Jews are defined as a mono-ethnic faith group and are therefore covered by the law against incitement to racial hatred, which requires neither proof of intent nor that incitement should take the form of threats.

Amsterdam VVD leader opposes deal with Wilders

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Eric van der Burg, leader of the right-wing Liberal VVD in Amsterdam, is against his party forming a new government with Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam PVV, local tv station AT5 reports.

“The PVV says things about large parts of the Netherlands and large parts of Amsterdam which I do not recognise. That is the main reason I say ‘you should not want to work with the PVV’.”

The national VVD, Christian Democrats and PVV are hoping to soon restart talks on forming a right-wing government.

Dutch News, 9 September 2010

Interfaith alliance takes stand against anti-Muslim hatred

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Interfaith summit

Prominent Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders held an extraordinary “emergency summit” meeting in the capital on Tuesday to denounce what they called “the derision, misinformation and outright bigotry” aimed at American Muslims during the controversy over the proposed Islamic community center near ground zero.

“This is not America,” said Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, the emeritus Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington, flanked by three dozen clergy members and religious leaders at a packed news conference at the National Press Club. “America was not built on hate.”

They said they were alarmed that the “anti-Muslim frenzy” and attacks at several mosques had the potential not only to tear apart the country, but also to undermine the reputation of America as a model of religious freedom and diversity.

Interfaith events are not unusual, but this one was extraordinary for the urgency and passion expressed by the participants. Some of the same religious leaders later met with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to urge him to prosecute religious hate crimes aggressively.

Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said: “We know what it is like when people have attacked us physically, have attacked us verbally, and others have remained silent. It cannot happen here in America in 2010.”

The clergy members said that those responsible for a poisoned climate included politicians manipulating a wedge issue in an election year, self-styled “experts” on Islam who denigrate the faith for religious or political reasons and some conservative evangelical Christian pastors.

The Rev. Richard Cizik, president of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, said: “To those who would exercise derision, bigotry, open rejection of our fellow Americans of a different faith, I say, shame on you. As an evangelical, I say to those who do this, you bring dishonor to those who love Jesus Christ.”

The summit meeting was initiated by leaders of the Islamic Society of North America, an umbrella group of mosques and Muslim groups, who contacted Jewish and Christian leaders they know from years of joint interfaith projects.

A Catholic priest, the Rev. Mark Massa, executive director of ecumenical and interreligious affairs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote the draft of the statement. About three dozen clergy members representing Jewish, Muslim, Protestant, Catholic, evangelical and Orthodox Christian groups refined it at the meeting.

New York Times, 7 September 2010

Watch video of press conference here

Read text of statement here

US Jewish groups step up efforts to combat anti-Muslim bigotry

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jewish groups have stepped up efforts to combat anti-Muslim bigotry, with several national initiatives announced this week and supporting statements coming in from a range of Jewish voices.

In Washington, officials from several Jewish organizations took part Tuesday in an emergency summit of Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders that denounced anti-Muslim bigotry and called for a united effort by believers of all faiths to reach out to Muslim Americans.

Also Tuesday, the Anti-Defamation League announced the creation of an Interfaith Coalition on Mosques, which will monitor and respond to instances of anti-Muslim bias surrounding attempts to build new mosques in the United States.

Meanwhile, six rabbis and scholars representing the Reconstructionist, Reform, Conservative and Orthodox streams have launched an online campaign urging rabbis to devote part of their sermons this Shabbat to educating their congregations about Islam.

The efforts come in response to what organizers describe as a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment resulting from the impending ninth anniversary of 9/11 and the controversy surrounding efforts to build a Muslim community center and mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan. Jewish bloggers and pundits, mostly on the right, have become more vocal in opposing the center and calling for greater scrutiny of American mosques.

Among the Jewish leaders at the emergency summit was Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. “As Jews, we could be nowhere else today,” said Saperstein, whose organization co-sponsored Tuesday’s interfaith summit with the Islamic Society of North America.

“We have been the quintessential victims of religious persecution … and we know what happens when people are silent,” he said, explaining why clergy and believers of all faiths need to be more forceful in speaking out against anti-Muslim bigotry. “We have to speak more directly to the anti-Muslim bigotry in America today.”

JTA, 7 September 2010